


Will Break for Food

by skiron



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cooking, Friendship, Galaxy Garrison, Gen, Jewish Character, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:20:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24999718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skiron/pseuds/skiron
Summary: Post-curfew kitchen excursions lead to some eating and some thinking and some talking. Set a couple weeks into Lance and Hunk's first term at the Garrison.
Relationships: Hunk & Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	Will Break for Food

It’s a terrible idea, sneaking into the kitchens. Cadets aren’t allowed to just have free access to the food stores, let alone industrial-size appliances, which -- if Lance is honest with himself -- feels reasonable, considering the caliber of kids he’s met here already. Platt and Harper would have a field day, and he’s not sure much of anything would survive if Griffin stopped flexing long enough to try to light a stove. Hunk would at least -- probably -- know what he was doing, but it’s still a terrible idea.

“What if we get caught? I’m not getting chewed out by Iverson just because you wanted to make a sandwich!”

“Sandwiches are obviously not on the menu for the homesick and decent-meal-deprived,” Hunk says dismissively. 

“Well, then what are we making?” He can’t resist asking. The answer won’t make a difference, he’s decided. It shouldn’t make a difference. It doesn’t matter that asking made Hunk’s entire face light up. He’s not breaking the fundamental rule of being a decent cadet his third week. He’s not doing it. That’s one way to guarantee he’ll never be a fighter pilot -- he’ll be stuck in cargo for life. But he won’t pretend he’s not curious, and he’s even more curious when Hunk ducks under his bed and pulls out a plastic container, the lid of which he whips off with a flourish. 

“We’re making ramen!” His expression is positively giddy; Lance can hardly stand it.

“Ramen? _That’s_ your brilliant idea for a meal that’s better than what they throw us in the mess?” 

“Real ramen, Lance, not with those mysterious flavor powders you get in the little plastic-wrapped blocks.” Lance looks in the tupperware and has to admit this looks a lot more complicated than the packets he generally associates with the word. It doesn’t matter. This isn’t happening. 

“I’m not sneaking out after curfew, breaking into the kitchen of all places, and risking being yelled at, suspended, thrown off the waitlist for fighter track --” 

“--Now, come on, they wouldn’t do that.” Hunk interrupts, his face softening. “Is that what you’re worried about?” 

“I’m not _worried_ ,” Lance says, sarcasm creeping into his voice and settling in like a cat jumping into a familiar lap. “I’m being realistic. They’re not just gonna say, ‘oh, good job boys, that’s some choice ramen!’”

“You don’t technically know that; my culinary skills are incredible.” 

“According to who exactly?” 

“Well, my mom, at least.” Hunk grabs the back of his neck self-consciously. “But, the point stands! She has excellent taste.” 

“Hunk --” Lance starts again, but Hunk cuts him off. 

“Please?” he asks, his eyes going wide. Lance suddenly finds himself unable to meet them, and looks down instead, ignoring the swooping feeling in his stomach. Maybe he’s hungrier than he thought he was. 

“I just don’t think we should be breaking rules when we’ve just gotten here,” he mumbles at the floor.

“Lance, I miss cooking. I miss my family. I miss _home_.” The pleading in his voice cuts straight into his heart, and Lance feels his resolve break all at once.

“Fine,” he says, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “But only because I just realized I’m starving. And if we get caught, I’m telling Iverson you hypnotized me.” It doesn’t even feel like a lie. 

\-- 

“I can’t believe they don’t bother locking the doors,” Lance whispers, following Hunk through as the entrance slides open. The doors lead to easily the largest kitchen he’s ever seen, and his family’s kitchen back home is no slouch, full of butcher-block counters and a massive farmhouse table. There’s a lot less wood in here -- everything is gleaming stainless steel -- which makes it feel remarkably cold. Lance is suddenly glad this plan involves soup. 

“What? Of course they lock them,” Hunk says incredulously. “Why did you think I brought this?” He holds up something that looks a lot like a graphing calculator. 

“Uh...because you’re a nerd?” Lance offers, raising his eyebrows.

“No --” Hunk stops suddenly and frowns. “I mean, well, yes, technically, but the kind of nerd that knows how to make a door...unlocked.” 

"How long have you been planning this?" 

"Since like last Thursday," he says, shrugging.

"Hang on --" Lance holds up a hand, feeling his eyebrows stretch up to his hairline. "-- you've been homesick enough to consider midnight kitchen escapades for a week already? Hunk, that was after like...two weeks of being away from home!" 

"I know," Hunk says, his shoulders slumping a little. "Seems like it doesn't take that much, I just...love my family, y'know?"

Lance swallows a sarcastic "that's one way of putting it, I guess," and lets the breath he'd taken in for it come out as a sigh. 

"I do know," he says instead, the sarcasm cat apparently leaving him to embarrass himself. He's looking at the floor again -- tiles this time, as opposed to the carpet in their dorm room. "My family's close, too -- emotionally, I mean. I miss the fields, too, and the animals...deserts are cool, and all, I guess, but nothing normal grows here." He clamps his mouth shut, his lips together extra tight to keep the words from escaping any more. He did not sneak out after curfew with a kid he's known less than a month to get made fun of for talking about feelings. 

"It only took me a week before I cried the first time," Hunk says quietly, and Lance looks up at him, surprised. This time he doesn’t even think of a sarcastic response; the sincerity is too jarring.

“Huh?” It’s all he can muster, but it’s enough that Hunk goes on. 

“It’s not being away from them a week, like, obviously I’ve been away from my family for a week before, but it’s just -- thinking about all of it. Like, how home will always be home, but how it also never really will be again.” He shrugs, and Lance nods absently, but a moment later what Hunk’s just said hits him and he breathes in sharply. 

“Oh, wow, I hadn’t thought about it that way,” he says, suddenly very aware of his heartbeat, which seems a bit too quick for standing still in the middle of a dark kitchen, even with the adrenaline of rule-breaking and risk. _It never really will be again._ Of course the farm is still home, to an extent, and his avuela’s little house in Varadero is still home, to an extent, but the main thing that’s always defined home for him is wherever his family is. When his older siblings went off to visit Dad in the summers and he was left behind with Mama, it never felt quite like home until they were back. When the others moved out and Marco and Luis started their own families, it was weird, but they were still nearby, and they came over more evenings than they didn’t. If he thinks about it, the weirdest was definitely when Veronica left and was suddenly missing from Shabbat dinners, except when she was home on breaks. That’s him now, he realizes. No wonder he was willing to break into the kitchens with Hunk on a Friday night. 

“Lance, buddy, you okay?” Hunk’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts, and he nods, probably a few times too many. 

“I’m good, I’m good,” he says, still nodding a bit. “Let’s -- let’s make some ramen.” Hunk grins at him and moves to put the container he brought from their room on the enormous stainless steel island in the middle of the room. 

“Alright, now I know we can’t do a stock from scratch, but the stock cubes my mom gets are the best, and I slipped a few into my bag before I left home -- you never know when you’ll need a burst of flavor, right? Especially with cafeteria food. They’re chicken; don’t worry. All the rest of this okay for you?” He’s moving rapidly, setting out different smaller containers that were inside the one big one he brought. There’s a tupperware of tiny foil-wrapped cubes, a couple packages of noodles, and a bag of paper-thin, pink-tinged flakes of some kind. Lance isn’t sure what those last things are, but there’s a hechsher on the corner of the bag, so he shrugs. 

“Sure.” 

“Excellent,” Hunk says. “Hey -- can you check the fridge and see what they have in the way of veggies? We’re gonna have to improvise a bit.”

“You don’t think they’ll notice if we take all the onions?” Lance asks, feeling the panic rise a bit in him again. 

“We’re not going to take all of them,” Hunk says reassuringly, pulling a cutting board and a knife from the counter next to the sink and bringing them over to the island where he seems to be setting up a prep station. “Just, like, one. See if there are any green onions or carrots or -- you know, whatever looks good.” Lance shakes his head and moves to the line of big industrial fridges, bracing himself for the noise of the seal releasing when he moves the lever on the first one to open it. Any noise the fridge makes is completely overshadowed by a series of incredibly loud clanging sounds from behind him, though, and he whips around to see Hunk holding a giant stock pot and looking a bit sheepish. 

“It was on the bottom,” he says apologetically.

“Shit, Hunk, we don’t need the entire building to know we’re in here!” Lance remembers to keep his voice to a whisper, but it’s a close thing. He holds up a hand so Hunk won’t move and listens carefully, but all he can hear is the hum of the fridges and his own breathing, which has sped up to what strikes him as a totally unnecessary rate. He forces it to slow down and lowers his hand slowly.

“Sorry,” Hunk mouths at him silently, and starts to move toward the stove. Lance takes a deep breath and turns back to the fridge, hoping there’s something there that makes this worth the trouble. 

\--

Twenty minutes later, they’ve managed to assemble what smells -- to Lance at least -- like an absolutely delicious soup. His stomach is growling loudly enough that he’s pretty sure it may wake some of the instructors on its own, never mind the avalanche of pots earlier or Hunk ripping open the noodles now. 

“Grab us a couple bowls?” Hunk says, dropping the noodles into the pot gently and grabbing the paddle he’s been using to stir them in. Lance nods and scans the back wall to try to figure out where the dishes must be. He’s settled on a likely-seeming alcove when he hears someone laugh loudly and freezes. 

“Did you --” he starts, and Hunk nods emphatically, eyes wide, his arm still stirring the pot automatically, though he seems to have forgotten that’s what he’s doing. Lance gulps. Now that he’s listening more carefully, he can hear the murmur of voices from somewhere nearby. He moves softly toward the door back to the hallway, ears as alert as they’ve ever been. There’s a sudden burst of laughter again, shared between at least two people. It’s cut off suddenly by a loud shushing sound, and the voices are near enough now that Lance can make out what they’re saying. 

“Do you want Iverson to catch us? God, Griff.” Oh, man, Lance thinks, if James Griffin is really out there, now would be a chance to get in good with him, convince him he’s a worthwhile guy to get to know. He wishes he weren’t so tired and so hungry -- he probably doesn’t have the brainpower right now to manage anything nearing cool, considering sarcasm has thoroughly abandoned him already. 

“Come on, what’s he going to do? Kick us out? Hate to break it to you, but I’ve got the top GPA in this place. They’re not gonna touch me.” That’s Griffin’s voice, alright. Lance raises his eyebrows and turns to look at Hunk, who has put the paddle down and turned the heat off on the stove, wiping his hands on a towel he has tucked into his belt. Hunk frowns, shakes his head slightly, as if to say _“not worth it.”_ Lance turns back to the door and sighs, realizing as he does that he’s been holding his breath for what must’ve been nearly a minute, listening. 

“Hey, what’s that smell?” That’s Harper, Lance is sure, which means it’s probably all three of them, getting up to some midnight trio shenanigans. Weirdly, he doesn’t envy them nearly as much as he would have a week ago, before he got to know Hunk, and certainly before they broke into the kitchen in the middle of the night to make ramen, which, he realizes now, is exactly what Harper’s smelling. He bites back a yelp at this realization and sets his jaw. Hopefully they’ll all just...move on. 

“I don’t know, Harp, Kogane’s grandma’s house?” And yep, there she is. Platt's presence also confirmed. 

“What? You know Kogane doesn’t know his grandma.” All three of them dissolve into snickers at that, and Lance blanches. Keith Kogane might be arrogant and snobby as hell, but he doesn't deserve that. He's glad on a certain level, though, that they seem to have dropped the idea of investigating. Their laughter and voices fade away as they continue down the hall toward the cadets' quarters, and Lance feels his heart rate start to return to normal. Hunk, behind him, clears his throat, and Lance turns around. 

"You know, I really don't understand why you even try to hang out with them," Hunk says softly. 

"What, you think I'm not good enough for them?" he hears his own voice snap angrily before he can stop himself. So much for late-night lack of filters being maybe a good thing. Now Hunk is telling him he doesn't deserve to be respected and looked up to like those three? He can feel his eyes burning and tells himself it's because he's tired. "Like, I know I'm not --"

"What? No." Hunk looks absolutely baffled. "Good enough for Griffin? For _Griffin?_ " He seems to have forgotten they're breaking at least four different rules and curfew, his voice rising. "Lance, that's the most absurd thing I've ever heard you say, and you manage to pack them in, buddy." This is the first time Lance has heard anything like bitterness in Hunk's voice, and it throws him. 

"What do you mean?" he asks, the anger draining out of him. 

"I mean," Hunk says, deliberately, crossing the room so they're standing eye to eye and lowering his voice again. "They're not worth it. Like, sure, they're popular, and they’ve got top marks, or whatever, but they're assholes. You want to be an asshole? Is that what you want? Because getting in good with assholes is how you turn into an asshole." 

Hunk's right, of course. They are assholes, all three of them, but the relative kindness of a person has never really been part of his criteria. His survival strategy has been the same since he was thrown into a new country as a ten-year-old with nothing going for him but decent swimming skills and a tourist industry English vocabulary. 

“Maybe I already am an asshole,” he says, more sincerely than he means to.

“I mean, sometimes!” Hunk says, throwing his hands wide. “We all are, sometimes, but that’s no reason to just lean into it.” 

“You’re never an asshole,” he says sullenly, back to staring at the floor.

“I’m -- that’s not true, but we don’t have to get into that right now.”

“I just want people to like me,” he mutters, still not looking up. He can feel tears pricking the back of his eyes, and it’s easier if he doesn’t have to see Hunk’s face. It’s such a simple want, after all, and yet one he's had to work so hard to try to fulfill. Join team sports, crack the jokes, keep an air of detached irony at all times, and maybe -- just maybe -- people will fold him in as one of the cool kids, not notice that he’s dragging behind in class. He's starting to think that's not the same thing as liking him, though.

“Maybe try listening to people who aren’t assholes, then?” He looks up to see Hunk smiling ruefully at him. 

“That's a thought," Lance admits, and his vision blurs. He blinks rapidly. He will _not_ cry in the mess kitchen at one in the morning. He will _not_ \-- before he can finish the thought a second time, Hunk closes the distance between them and hugs him, really hugs him, not like the perfunctory hugs he gives to his tias when they're in for a visit over the high holidays. He breathes in sharply and feels his whole body tense, startled, and Hunk lets go of him immediately. 

"Sorry," he says, hunching his shoulders a bit. "I didn't mean to --"

"No, that's okay," Lance says, a bit surprised that it is, actually. He laughs, which is kind of a relief since he much prefers it to crying. "I'm just not, uh, used to it. You should warn me when you're going off-script like that." 

"You're not used to hugs? Or not used to hugs from me? Because I totally get not wanting to hug a stranger -- not that we're strangers, but you know, you've only known me a couple weeks, might be weird, you know --" Hunk trails off helplessly, his hand gripping the back of his neck, eyes looking somewhere over Lance’s shoulder. 

“Uh, in general,” Lance says, and it’s his turn to hunch his shoulders, sticking his hands in his pockets for lack of a better place to put them. “My mom’s the only hugger in my family, really, and I haven’t seen her in awhile, so.” He doesn’t mean for that to come out nearly as bitterly as it does. He winces, looks back at Hunk to see him standing with his arms open. 

“Buddy, if you need one -- oof.” Hugs are nice, he realizes, when they’re not being demanded by relatives you hardly see, whose primary purpose in visiting seems to be to comment about how tall you’ve grown, _“and yet still so skinny! Are you feeding him enough, Marlinda?”_ Oh, thinking about his mom right now is not a good call if he wants to keep the tears from coming back, he realizes, and steps back out of Hunk’s arms, dashing the sleeve of his jacket across his eyes before Hunk can say anything about it. 

“So how about that ramen?” He manages casual as a tone, which is not bad, all things considered. 

“Oh, yeah! Bowls?” Hunk walks back over to the pot and Lance meets him there with two bowls from the back alcove. They’re a bit shallow, in that weird shape of cafeteria bowls everywhere that’s somehow not great for cereal and soup or for pasta, but they’ll get the job done. Hunk ladles noodles and broth into both, with some onion and a bit of wilted spinach they were pretty sure no one would miss. He tops each bowl with half an egg he boiled earlier and offers one to Lance, who looks down at it and frowns. 

“Uh, Hunk? How are we supposed to eat this? I’m pretty sure the caf doesn’t have chopsticks.” 

“Oh, it doesn’t,” Hunk says lightly. “But I do.” He goes back to the container on the counter and pulls out two pairs, handing one to Lance.

“Wow, you are a nerd,” he says, laughing. There’s nowhere to eat but the floor, and Lance is suddenly glad for all the cleaning details cadets get put on, since it’s probably been bleached in the last six hours or so. The two of them settle with their backs against the counter, and for a couple of minutes the kitchen is silent apart from the slurping of noodles and the clinking of chopsticks against bowls.

The ramen is cool enough by now that Lance can eat it quickly, and it’s absolutely bananas how delicious it is. He guesses he shouldn’t be surprised that packages don’t measure up to the real thing, but the real thing isn’t usually an option. 

“Wow, Hunk,” he says when he can stop to take a breath. “This is something else.” 

“It’s taking you on a journey, huh,” Hunk says, nodding. “Best food does.” 

“A journey to deliciousville,” he says. “To tasty town, to flavor planet --” 

“-- Alright, buddy, I get it.” He’s laughing now, a little bit, but Lance needs to be sure he understands. 

“I don’t know if you do? But if I keep trying to explain, that’s going to keep me from eating it, and that is...Unacceptable.” He looks over at Hunk as he goes back to his bowl to see his roommate smiling down at his own food, his whole face almost glowing with pride. “I mean that,” he adds quietly. “This is, like, really good.” 

“Thanks.” 

It’s gone in minutes, and the empty bowls make him feel almost wistful, but he realizes as he carries them over to the sink to wash them that he’s also horrendously thirsty. 

“Hey, Hunk --” He turns, only to see there’s already a glass of water being offered to him. “Oh, thanks.” Hunk nods, drinking his own water before they both move to clean up. The good news is Hunk at least has been assigned enough cleaning details that he’s mercilessly efficient. It seems like it comes with the territory of having an often-turbulent stomach. Although if he’s used to food like this, Lance thinks, it makes a bit more sense that the commissary stuff doesn’t exactly treat him right. 

\--

“I can’t believe you have a homemade mac and cheese recipe and you didn’t go with that for this whole stunt,” Lance whispers, trying to keep from laughing as they sneak back toward their quarters. Hunk’s container is full of leftover ramen now, and Lance is just hoping it’ll fit in their mini-fridge without a problem. 

“I mean, would you have been nearly as impressed if I’d made something that simple?” Hunk asks him with a grin, nudging their door open with his shoulder. 

“Honestly? I’m a simple man, Hunk,” He grabs Hunks shoulder and throws his other arm wide gesturing at their room as a whole. “Show me a big bowl of carbs and cheese, and I’m happy.” 

“We can always make it next Friday,” Hunk says, shrugging. Lance laughs and shakes his head, dropping his arm. 

“Right, sure, we’re definitely doing this again.” The sarcasm cat is back, thankfully, and he can’t resist adding -- “because we didn’t come close enough to giving us both full-blown panic attacks already.” 

But despite his claims, it becomes something of a ritual before long, to the point where Lance will come back from service on Friday night, change into jeans instead of pajamas, and read comics for maybe five minutes before Hunk looks over at him. 

“Still homesick?” He asks, every time, without fail. 

“I mean, kind of,” Lance says, frowning. “Not like, _really_ homesick, I’m not a baby about it or anything.” 

But Hunk gives him that look, eyes wide, pointedly hopeful, and he knows that even if he wanted to say no, he’s not entirely sure he could. And every time he sees it he sighs, puts down whatever issue he’s reading. 

“If Iverson catches us, I’m blaming you.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [LovelyLessie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyLessie/pseuds/LovelyLessie), R, and J for beta reading, and the biggest thanks to Rose for throwing out the "What if...?" that led here.


End file.
